Jicarilla Supermarket

The Jicarilla Apache Supermarket is new 20,000 sf, tribal-owned grocery store located in Dulce New Mexico, about 40 minutes south of the Colorado border on the Jicarilla Apache Nation. The building was built to replace the previous supermarket, a 60,000 sf tilt-up building that was too big, with a flat roof that had succumbed to the substantial snow loads of the area and was failing before it was a decade old.

The new building was appropriately scaled and features pitched roofs, and durable cast-in-place concrete exterior walls. Climate conditions required special systems to allow for safely clearing snow from the pitched roof to protect shoppers below. Snow removal was designed to allow snow to be plowed off the lot to melt and return to the ground in a swale away from the building.

The Jicarilla Supermarket is essential to the rural community of and around Dulce. It was critical that the existing grocery remain operational while the new store was under construction, requiring parking, access and egress considerations for patrons and shipping deliveries and safety barriers.

Soaring roofs topped with clerestory shower the inner space with natural daylight. The pitched roof and cast-in-place concrete exterior walls offer a durable building solution that will serve the community for decades.

Photography credit: mattophoto architectural photography